


Superhostile

by thatgirlfromasgard



Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Angst, Despair, Gaslighting, Gen, Isolation, Loneliness, Manipulation, Mind Games, Respawn is a thing, Temporary Character Death, Vex Shenanigans, content warnings per chapter supplied where necessary, inspired by like one moment in etho's legendary series, lots of combat, more characters might appear at some point idk, no beta we die like people trying to complete a monument, nothing is prewritten, verbal abuse - not commited by hermits
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28922337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatgirlfromasgard/pseuds/thatgirlfromasgard
Summary: An old 'friend' invites Etho over for a challenge. Little does he know how high the stakes actually are...[summary intentionally left vague]
Comments: 15
Kudos: 47





	1. Prologue - A Letter

A gentle breeze fluttered through the air, making the leaves of the trees and bushes sway to the rhythm. Parrots squawked in the nearby jungle while clouds drifted overhead in the afternoon sun. It was serene out, as most days were.

There weren’t many that came to the base that seemingly hovered above the lake at the edge of the jungle, and its usual occupant wasn’t in either. Instead, there was just a llama there, moving around in a minecart with no set destination, looking around casually but not really focussed on anything. It just was there, probably chilling. A small water feature made noises somewhere off to the side, and every now and then, a piston fired somewhere, signifying a successful harvest from this farm or that.

It was all very serene, and timeless in a way too. If it weren’t for the sun that slowly crawled through the sky on its daily path from one side of the horizon to the other, it wouldn’t really have been possible to tell that time was actually passing. That was fine, though. The occasional reminder of the concept was just about enough, really.

To say it all changed when a blue light suddenly appeared would be overstating things. If anything, the only thing that seemed to change was where the llama was looking, and even then it only looked for a few seconds before dismissing it. Still, llama-approval or not, the blue light grew larger as it materialised over the bed. It twisted and swirled through the air.

Then, something appeared through it. An envelope materialised slowly but surely, before drifting down onto the pillow, a wax seal pointing upwards.

The light then dimmed again until it disappeared completely, and that was just about it. A letter delivered, waiting to be found.


	2. Day -1 - Invited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Etho finds a letter in a place where he certainly didn't leave one.

The day had been long, filled with hard work. Ice-E-E’s has needed a restock, and Etho had found himself mining away at his ice farm to make sure he could fill the chests. Had it just been the regular ice that had run out, it wouldn’t even be that much of a task. Just regular ice, _that_ took maybe an hour, and most of that time was spent waiting for water to freeze over.

Someone had bought out his supply of blue ice, though, which meant that he had no time to rest or wait between rounds of collecting the ice. Blue ice was something he needed to craft, compressing regular ice into packed ice and then once more into blue ice. It was a lot of hard work, with barely anything to show for it in the end. As the sun dipped below the horizon, Etho had just under eight stacks of the blue shiny water, which was nowhere near enough to stock up with. Then again, how often did people actually _need_ the blue ice? For most cases, packed ice did the job just fine, even in harsh environments like the Nether. And worst case, the packed ice was still stocked up, someone could just compress that down further if they _really_ needed the blue ice.

When it got too dark to properly do any work, Etho went and flew back to his base, the cool night air not even a relief after the time he spent between the ice. If anything, it warmed him back up a little, giving him back some of the feeling in his fingers and toes. That, and it was a nice middle ground before he’d hit the ever-warm air of the jungle again. It was the same reason he liked flying back to his base instead of going through the Nether, even though the latter was most definitely the faster of the two. That difference in temperature was just about the greatest one could find, and the same went for the difference in humidity. Etho didn’t particularly like the snow on his mask turning to steam in his face.

The landscape changed under him until he was back at the familiar jungle, until he touched down in front of the Googler. For the shortest of moments, he considered sorting out his inventory, to mark the end of his day, but the temptation of just faceplanting his pillow and falling asleep was a strong one. He sent one more wistful gaze over to his storage, and then dragged himself to where his bed was.

The Bdubs plushie sitting on the shelf next to his clock was staring at him judgemental as always, ever unhappy with his sleeping pattern.

“Yes, yes, I know. After sundown, again. You would’ve already been in bed. Well, _some_ of us want to actually finish what we’re doing. Oh, don’t give me that, mister. Don’t you dare.”

Honestly, one of those days he would just move it to a different room, but he also knew his friend would just keep pestering him until he put it back there. For some reason, Bdubs had been pushing basically everyone to take care of themselves and their sleeping patterns since the first moment they stepped into this world, to the point of giving all of them a plush version of himself to remind them that they ‘gotta schreep’. It was probably for the better, though. Etho had found himself taking at least a _little_ bit more care about when he hit the hay while he was on Hermit-7 compared to, say, while he was working metal on Terra Firma, or while he was building Emerald City on Elpee. That being said, over there, there weren’t really any other Worldwalkers he could socialise with, it was just villagers, giants, or something like kobolds at best, and most of those didn’t really mind what time of day it was.

On Hermit-7, things were different. Sleeping through the day could well mean he missed the start of another war or rivalry, or the newest strange thing happening in the shopping district, and trying to puzzle together what happened afterwards was generally a pain in the backside due to the sheer amount of shenanigans that usually followed.

There were no shenanigans on his mind, however, as he kicked off his boots and just fell on top of his bed, clothes and all. Etho was asleep before his head touched the pillow.

\---

He woke up slowly, sitting up and yawning. His face felt weird, somehow, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint why. Not until he went to rub the sleep from his eyes, at the very least. His hand brushed past some paper that had somehow managed to get stuck to his cheek, and it fell into his lap, wax seal up. Etho frowned.

_Was that thing there last night? Or did someone deliver that while I slept? Hmm._

His curiosity was piqued, though. He vaguely recognised the symbol in the wax, but Etho wasn’t sure what from. Still, he had the feeling he wouldn’t have to wonder about that for very long. Without waiting further, he broke through the seal, opening up the envelope. Out came a letter, written in a neat and formal handwriting. The edges of the paper were decorated with silvery squiggly bits, and Etho was briefly confused about whether this was really meant for him. His name being on top of the page, however, quelled that confusion.

_Dear Etho,_

_It’s been a while, hasn’t it? And still, it feels like yesterday that you made an absolute fool of me. Canopy Carnage, the Kaizo Caverns, Spellbound caves… I thought those were hard, but I knew they could be beaten with enough skill. (And, let’s be honest, for a few of those you brought friends – That’s not entirely fair, now is it?) Legendary, on the other hand… That was my pride and joy. I put that world together with the greatest care, to make it truly difficult, almost impossibly so. And yet… You breezed through it. My ego took quite the hit when I heard the news, I’m not going to lie._

_That being said, I’ve been working on something ever since then. A new world, larger and more challenging than even Legendary. It has more zones, more dungeons, and a larger monument to complete. I doubt you’ll be able to get through it all, but I’m going to challenge you to do so anyway. Surely, you’re not enough of a coward to decline, now are you?_

_In any case, should you decide to honour my challenge, the envelope will also contain the instructions as to how to get to this new world – I’m calling it The Vexing Domain, both because it will frustrate you to bits and because I’m not too good to avoid puns with my name. With that said, I only have to say one more thing, and they’re words you put in my mouth all those years ago. Let’s see, what were they again? Right._

_You’re going to do great buddy!_

_\- Vechs_

Etho blinked, not entirely sure what to think.

“A challenge, huh…” he muttered as he read over the letter once more, just to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. There didn’t _seem_ to be anything to miss, though. It was all just very clear. A challenge to complete a monument, as well as some familiar kinds of taunts to go with it. It felt like the old days indeed.

_Actually, with Decked Out being out of business… A challenge world doesn’t even sound half bad. Besides, if this is anything like Legendary, I can just hop between there and my other worlds when things become a bit too much, or when I’m needed elsewhere._

It didn’t take much more than that to make up his mind. There weren’t really any downsides, besides this meaning he would be spending a little bit less time on Hermit-7, Terra Firma, and Elpee. Which in turn meant he was going to need to double check whether everything there could handle his absence for a week or two. That, and he was going to need to announce his absence to the other Hermits, just to make sure they wouldn’t mount some extensive search for him because they hadn’t seen him for a couple of days.

Etho chuckled to himself as he put the letter back in its envelope and laid it next to the clock for now. He’d get back to that later when he was actually ready to go. For now, though, he still had quite some things to do first, like actually going to restock Ice-E-E’s. He was _not_ going to let yesterday’s work go to waste, that would be a shame. Besides, he’d love to get back to Hermit-7 and be welcomed by a good amount of blue shiny rocks.

\---

It was barely noon when Etho returned to his base. He had made sure to check all his shops, adding bits of stock were necessary, and after that he had swung by his office above Shade-E-E’s to leave some instructions for Bdubs for while he was gone. Some new ideas for subscription services, mostly, like a button service where they added a whole lot of buttons to someone’s base, or a music service that played random notes every now and then. Of course, he had mostly taken that idea from Impulse’s antics, but he reckoned it was still something that people would subscribe their friends for, original idea or not. Besides, tipping the scales even further to the side of money instead of ethics only strengthened the business model of the store.

He whipped his communicator out of its pocket, looking around once before sighing. This wasn’t quite the last moment he could still change his mind about accepting the challenge, but somehow it still felt like it. His gut wasn’t so much screaming as it was whispering doubts about the whole invitation situation, but Etho couldn’t pinpoint any reason _why_ he would feel off about it. Perhaps it was just the burden of expectations slowly settling in.

Still, his hands found the buttons to press in order to make words appear on the screen of his comms, and slowly but surely he composed a few short messages.

<Etho> Hey guys! Just to let you all know, I got invited to a challenge world, so I’ll be gone for a week or two.

<Etho> After that, I’ll drop by and take a short break, those worlds tend to be a bit exhausting -.-

<Etho> That’s all! Take care! Bye-bye!

It didn’t take long for more messages to come rolling in, wishing him luck or being vaguely dramatic about how the server wouldn’t survive him being gone for that long, which made him chuckle to himself.

_Drama queens, the bunch of them._

And with that out of the way, the next thing to do was to worldhop a few times. Etho went and got the letter, copying the instructions over in his communicator for later use. He wasn’t quite sure if he was going to be able to bring it with him to Elpee or Terra Firma, but he had experience enough to know that the whole process would be easiest if he were to just leave everything he got on Hermit-7 on Hermit-7, and do the same for the other worlds. _Especially_ Terra Firma tended to be really fiddly with that kind of thing, which he mostly understood. That world seemed to adhere to slightly different rules than the other ones he frequented, and no one particularly liked having anomalies tearing through the world fabric, which caused all kinds of troubles.

The last thing he did before leaving was putting all things he had on him aside from his clothes and his communicator into a chest next to his bed. It wasn’t labelled, but then again, he doubted he needed it to be. People rarely came poking around in his base, and even if they did, he assumed that they would put two and two together quickly enough to realise what it was.

Then, he took his communicator and moved towards one of the more hidden menu’s. He selected the option that would start up the hopping sequence, and a green light surrounded him. Then he selected Terra Firma, one of his saved destinations. He’d go there first, then to Elpee, and if everything was in order there, he’d set course for the Vexing Domain. He’d show Vechs who was boss.

The green lights started spinning around him, and he felt the familiar feeling of floatiness overtaking him a second before everything beyond the lights went dark.

**> Etho has left the world.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For reference: Hermit-7 means the HC season 7 world, Elpee is Etho's LP world, and Terra Firma is Etho's Terra Firma Punk world. Yes, I'm very good at names.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, all done? Check out my [other works](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatgirlfromasgard/works)!
> 
> Also, don't worry, the existence of a second longfic doesn't mean my other one won't get finished, my brain just demanded I at least started writing this.


End file.
